


Here's To The Damsel That's Merry

by Eisenschrott



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6488722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Maximilian Veers, rising star of the Imperial Army, has some trouble mingling with the sybaritic high society of Coruscant; so does his lovely wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Don’t act all shy and coy, lad!” Moff Juno gave Captain Maximilian Veers a pat on the lower back. Quite low. Several centimetres under the belt. “Share that charming sniper story of yours with the gents and ladies here.”

Juno’s glass-holding hand gestured towards the wall of dress uniforms enclosing him and Veers. The other didn’t leave the captain’s back. When Veers did not start speaking promptly enough for the Moff’s taste, it gave a squeeze.

Veers prayed no one else had noticed—especially not the Moff’s wife—and forced out a smile. “On Asyrphus, I had been under the scopes of a rather persistent Rebel sniper. Eight days in a row. Then a scout trooper on patrol gunned her down.” He stared down at his wine. The din of background music, chatter, and glasses, filled the silence for a few seconds.

Juno gave his backside another squeeze, and at last relinquished the hold. “Not one for self-aggrandisement, isn’t he?”

As far as Veers could tell it was not a joke, but the bystanders laughed. “Juno, what do you wager,” said a lanky woman in Navy dress uniform and admiral’s rank badge, “he tracked down and shot that piece of scum himself?”

“I didn’t, ma’am,” Veers cut in, “and I filed a request for a posthumous award to that trooper—”

“Excellent, Captain!” piped the admiral. “Always show the troops you care for their acts of valour. Even if valour is the minimum standard required from our lads in white.”

Veers took another sip of his Alderaanian red. He’d already drunk too much, and the bittersweet aftertaste gave him a wave of nausea. What he wouldn’t give for a shot of the moonshine Lieutenant Bethke had distilled on Asyrphus: ‘grain water’ she called it, a deceptively innocent name. No surprise the Asyrphus wheat fields had burned so fast under orbital bombardment. The fires smelled of bread like the interior of a bakery.

Now Bethke was dead. Her moonshine stills had been packed up with the rest of her belongings and sent home to Garel. Veers nodded without listening to any other word the admiral spoke, and guzzled the rest of his wine.

Just as predicted, Juno cocked a thick white-haired brow at the empty glass, and _ordered_ Veers to make a sortie to the buffet table and have a refill. “I do not trust abstemious soldiers,” Veers heard him preach. “Abstemiousness, if you ask me, reeks of Jedi zealotry…”

Veers approached the droid-manned wine table with its pyramids of vintage bottles. He had the same wine he’d had before, because he didn’t have a single clue what else to order.

While the droid popped the bottle open, Veers glanced around for a pale yellow dress… there, there she was, besieged by a throng of officers and officers’ spouses: he caught a glimpse of her dress, just a touch of that colour. But it sufficed to make him sigh in relief.

Relief at what, he wasn’t sure. That she existed in the same galaxy as him, for once on the same planet as him. Even if Veers would have preferred the planet to be Denon, the place their bedroom, and all clothes gone.

“Enjoy your drink, sir,” the droid’s clipped mechanical voice snatched him back to reality. He took the proffered glass and commenced an evasive manoeuvre away from Moff Juno’s positions. The trick, like in a boxing match, was to never stand still in the same place. Keep moving, follow an unpredictable motion pattern.

He dodged cluster after cluster of guests, medal-plated uniform jackets and jewel-encrusted robes; the zigzag line of retreat led him to a panoramic balcony, which he identified as one of the bubble-shaped protrusions of opaque transparisteel running up the skyscraper’s structure. He’d noticed them during the airspeeder trip from the spaceport, and thought they resembled Snivvian lues buboes. Of course he’d kept the thought to himself, lest he had to explain Eliana what kind of stuff they showed Imperial officers in STD prevention seminars, and ruin her evening completely.

The sight through the bare transparisteel, with neither railing nor visible floor, was impressive. Veers silently thanked his good luck that he wasn’t afraid of heights, and stepped forward until his breath blew a white circle on the slightly dark-tinted pane. For a moment it blurred the spires of the Imperial Palace out of the skyline. Bad omen, he thought. The kind of stupid shit that people got arrested for in scary stories about the Security Bureau.

He looked down at the skyscraper abyss under his polished boots; a dark fog lingered over the lower levels, making the drop seem deceptively short. Imperial citizens lived there, in the eternal smog. One of his best AT-ST pilots was from the Coruscant underworld. Never talked about home, much less with an officer.

Then chin up, to the night sky. Pink and orange, abuzz with the orderly stripes of airspeeder traffic lines and the intermittent lights of starships landing and taking off. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps the lost sleep he’d not caught up on yet, but Veers had to rub his tired eyes.

Footsteps and a muffled laughter behind him made him spin on his heels, in time to watch a man in a naval dress uniform arm-in-arm with a man in green silk civvies wander into the balcony. Both halted and ceased their chattering as soon as they spotted him. The civilian was carrying a bottle in his free arm, half-hidden under the large cut of the sleeve.

Veers raised an eyebrow, as a reflex rather than heartfelt censure, but the civilian sighed. “Lorth, I told you it was a crazy idea.”

“Don’t get so jittery—”

“What if we get in trouble? If _I_ get you in trouble?”

Veers propped himself against the transparisteel pane. “Do I look like an ISB informant? I’ll take care to change my ways if that’s the impression I give off.”

The Navy man didn’t miss a beat. “Not at all, Captain Veers, and in fact, you simply look splendid.”

It was the civilian’s turn to regard his companion with a quirked brow.

“Permission to speak frankly, Lieutenant…?”

“Needa. And please do, sir.”

“That old sleaze, Moff Juno—”

Lieutenant Needa nodded knowingly.

“…just groped my afterburners because I _look splendid_ and am _the rising star of the Empire_ ,” Veers started gesturing with his free hand, “and _such a fine lad, a new hope for the galaxy_. And so on.”

“Colonel Olshki said that thing about the new hope, didn’t she?”

“It was a colonel and an old woman, of this I’m sure.”

“Good impersonation.”

He sounded so sincere and good-humoured that Veers found himself smiling a bit. “Thanks. I’d appreciate if you didn’t let that be known to Colonel Olshki herself.”

“My mouth is sealed.”

A pretty mouth it was, nice full lips—Veers shoved the thought aside and drowned it in wine.

Needa took the bottle from the civilian, who seemed about to protest but clammed up before even trying. “This one’s a rather mediocre vintage, I’m afraid.”

Veers grinned and extended the empty glass. “Good for dirt-pounding grunts like me, then.”

“I didn’t mean to be _that_ rude.” Needa wrinkled his nose at pouring the white into the same glass that had just contained a red , but under Veers’ insistence that it was fine, filled the glass to the brim.

The civilian seized the bottle, threw his head back and drank a near-endless swig that made the apple of his throat bob like a cork. Once he was done, or started feeling short of breath, he thrust the bottle back into Needa’s hands and stomped off into the corridor.

Needa watched him go with the face you’d see on an officer if the Empire signed a galaxy-wide unconditional surrender to the Hutts.

“Should’ve said from the start that I’m content with my wife,” Veers muttered. Sure he was wearing a wedding ring, and on Denon that would have nipped every misunderstanding (and every flirting) in the bud. But Coruscanti fashion codes had different rules. Or the higher-ups here were too self-entitled to bother with consent or lack thereof.

“Content as in ‘committedly monogamous’, I gather?” Needa sounded stricken, but kept looking the way the civilian had walked off.

“Yes. Sorry to disappoint.” For some reason Veers avoided to ponder, his ego felt stroked.

“To each his own.” Needa pulled at a lock of blond hair on his temple, that had snuck its way out from under the cap. “I’ve considered asking him to marry me. Not now, anyway—next home leave, probably.”

“Which could be no sooner than next year.” Veers sipped on his wine, then grinned. “Maybe by then the war will be over.”

The other man nodded. Politely, without much conviction.

“Or you could have made it to captain. How about that?”

“Are you suggesting I shouldn’t settle down until I get that promotion?”

“I would be a hypocrite if I did. I was a lieutenant when I got married.” Saying it made Veers feel warm within. “But you may not want to rush it, is what I’m saying. Focus on the first target: making peace tonight.”

“Peace as in, pacifying the galaxy, or parting on friendly terms with that impossible lad?”

“Don’t be daft, Lieutenant.”

Needa huffed, and checked the chrono at his wrist. “His temper has exactly eleven standard hours and twenty minutes to cool off. And counting.”

“Ah, the _Avenger_?”

“One day, maybe!” His expression became softer and dreamier. Over a Star Destroyer, not over the poor bastard he wanted to marry.  Blasted Navy tosspots. “My command is a light cruiser in the Vengie’s convoy. Hence we leave at the same hour. How come you know the fleet’s timetables, though?”

“I checked them to see if my wife and I could hitch a ride home to Denon.”

“Star Destroyers aren’t the most comfortable places for intimacy. Speaking from personal experience.”

Veers rolled his eyes.

“If the commander doesn’t grumble, the rumour mill—”

He laughed, cutting off the rest of the lecture. “I am not a greenhorn, Lieutenant! In none of the possible senses of the word, trust me.”

“I’d love to test that.”

It was like a live sparkle had set something on fire in the transparisteel bubble. Veers remained still, levelling a cold look to match Needa’s inviting—no, not inviting, challenging—one. “You are so lucky I take my wedding vows as seriously as my oath to the Empire.”

“The Empire is the only lucky party in this deal, Captain.”

“And my wife, I should hope.” Veers found himself forced to drink a generous sip of wine over sudden, foul-tasting guilt. He didn’t know where she was now, if she was getting bored, or being standoffish towards the many insufferable pricks inside that ballroom—Eli was not one to take kindly to disparaging remarks (or what she chose to consider as such), no matter how subtle and therefore easy to play deaf to.

“I beg of you, stop talking about your wife,” and had Needa not said it in such an amiable tone Veers would have smashed glass and bottle on his mug. “Some of us haven’t been touched by the light of conjugal bliss.”

“Why do you want to get married, anyway?” Veers riposted. “Got some old parent breathing on your neck for you to quit the dalliances?”

“Thank the stars, no. It’s just that… he’s a good man. And I’m getting a bit old to always play the part of the gentleman soldier from the song. Though no bastard children have ever been involved, of course.”

Not that Veers trusted a sailor’s word on that, but he pretended to for peaceful interaction’s sake.

Needa glanced again at the corridor, a rueful smile on his face. Handsome, whispered the part of Veers’ brain that had been responsible for his every unwanted boner since puberty. Awfully unmilitary, Captain Veers’ booming mental voice quelled the rest of the claptrap.

“Lieutenant, another word of advice.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Drink a good fill. Then go and find him.”

“Wouldn’t you happen to know any magic words to restore the peace?”

“Man, you’re a sailor! You’re supposed to know everything about wooing and sweet-talking.”

This earned him a scowl. A hard one, worthy of a bridge officer. “It isn’t a matter of _wooing_ , Captain.”

Veers held up a finger. “Let me finish. Tell him those sorts of things, but with one significant difference: that you mean them.”

He shook his head. “This is the worst relationship advice I’ve ever heard, with all due respect. Do you suppose _he_ is unfamiliar with… with soldiers’ love? For stars’ sake, we first met during an orgy!”

Somehow, that failed to surprise Veers, at least regarding the handsome lieutenant. The civilian, on the other hand, had seemed a bit strait-laced for that stuff. “You asked for something to restore the peace, and it will. A wedding proposition…” Veers shrugged, and rolled the glass in his hand. “Well, capturing that fortress will take a longer siege.”

Needa groaned. “Not the siege warfare metaphors! But you have a point, I guess. Thank you for the input. And also for being a fine sight for sore eyes.”

Veers raised his glass. It produced a gentle clink against the bottle. The Navy man drank that good fill: he did it with an elegant gesture, without tossing his head back, but Veers estimated his chugging capability to be about twice the wine in his own glass. Better not to think what that pretty mouth might be put to a good use for.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a trench to storm,” Needa said in a slightly ragged voice. If the civilian had a functional libido, that voice alone would have ensured instant reconciliation, and a frantic search for the nearest restroom or storeroom or deserted corridor.

Veers saluted. The lieutenant returned the gesture.

“One last thing, please,” said Veers. “If you see my wife, tell her I’m here.”

“Pining for her presence?” The Navy man gave him a slit-eyed smile.

“Waiting.”

Needa chuckled and left with the bottle.


	2. Chapter 2

For all that Eliana’ parents had always insisted she was a tomboy, there used to be a time when she’d daydreamt of wearing Senatorial dresses—it had been a time when Senator Amidala of Naboo was all over the HoloNet—and dancing with Alderaanian princes in a gargantuan ballroom on Coruscant.

Of course, such flights of fancy had never taken into account the searing pain of tight high-heeled shoes grinding into her heel tendons and bending her feet out of shape, the skirt of her dress either blocking her legs or baring them to halfway up her thighs, the strapless bra squeezing her tits and at the same time jutting them almost out of the dress neckline, and the possibility that the Alderaanian prince might be a general thrice her age who prattled on and on about how much she reminded him of his daughter.

“And how does a child like you—”

_I’m twenty-eight standard years old and I have a son, you idiot._

“—finds herself already married to a soldier? Ah, crazy, crazy youth!”

Eliana plastered a tight-lipped smile over her face, nodded at General Old Fart #4, and removed herself from the dance floor as soon as the waltz was over and the couples scrambled for new partners.

The last she’d seen of Max had been a moment before General Old Fart #1 had latched an arm around her waist and proposed— _im_ posed—a dance. When he’d leaned over and kissed her neck, she’d tripped him. General Old Fart #2 and #3 had had the relative decency to limit themselves to lewd whispers.

She made her way through the guests, trying not to make eye contact and scanning the rank badges on the flat chests of male officers: if she spotted a captain, she glanced at the face. But in most cases the set of the shoulders, or the paunch, or the height, sufficed to tell it wasn’t Max.

“Hah, the lovely young Mrs Veers!”

 _Oh, Sithspit_. Eliana stopped, and offered her now well-practised fake smile to the older woman who’d addressed her.

The reaction was a raised eyebrow. A well-trimmed brow, defiantly silver-streaked, shaved thin and curly like a stylised tree branch. The eye under it scanned Eliana from head to toe, polite enough not to let the disappointment show.

“Lady Juno, I suppose?”

“Ahh, right, you know me. My husband introduced us, before he took yours hostage.”

Her dress was a blood-red that complimented her tanned skin tone. Plain monochrome, the only concession to frills being the lace knotwork that circled the neck—a covering, scarf-like neck, that made Eliana feel even more naked. And as misplaced in her company as a little girl playing dress-up with her mother’s clothes; or her grandmother’s. Which was the stark truth.

Passed down four generations, the wedding dress was the fanciest thing Eliana owned. Silver, yellow, long-skirted, long-sleeved, and old. Old in the cut, old in the colours, old in the fabric. Eliana had been so proud of wearing it, the day of the wedding, she’d cried. It didn’t fit her so damn tight back then.

“He can be useful, too, sometimes,” Lady Juno continued. It was the sort of witticism that people at these gatherings laughed their stiff arse off at, but there were a few paces of void all around Lady Juno; Eliana was the only one within speaking distance.

She felt it was safe to put a bit of sincerity in her smile. “I suppose His Majesty wouldn’t keep Moffs around if they weren’t useful, milady.”

“I didn’t mean it in a political or military sense.” Lady Juno’s expression turned mischievous. “But I do appreciate you had the guts to presume so. By the way, there is no need to ‘milady’ me, you aren’t a handmaiden; Winiver will do.”

“Eliana. A pleasure to meet you. I mean… to make your acquaintance.” Kriffing hell, that was bad. “Proper acquaintance. On first name basis.” Even worse.

“I know your name, honey.” Eliana’s mortified look made her smile more broadly. “Awkwardness is a rare sight these days. Your type of it, anyway. It has a bold strike I quite like.” Her heels clicked as she turned, still keeping eye contact. “Please, do let me guide you to the good drinks.”

Eliana wasn’t sure whether she was thirsting the most for alcohol or for bearable company. _If only Max were here…_ She skulked in the wake of Lady Juno’s spirited cadence, heel-point heel-point heel-point, that made the older woman’s hips bounce under the skirt of her dress, just enough for the motion to appear graceful.

Said skirt was not as long as to cover the ankles, and Eliana noticed a sturdy pair of legs that even the pointy button boots and curvy heels could only slim so much. Just like her own.

Her attention returned to scanning the surroundings, while Lady Juno led the march. She was so on edge that, despite recognising a general’s rank bar on the uniform of a man, the height and broad shoulders made her hope against hope it was Max—until the fiery red beard and the prosthetic eyes quashed that hope.

This time around, nobody tried to block her and initiate a conversation. Hall after hall the crowd thinned and the lights dimmed. There were pictures hanging on the walls, some holograms and some painted. They looked spooky and sad in the self-regulating lights that powered themselves up as the two women walked near them, only to fade off again a moment later. The place had been an art gallery, Eliana had read on the HoloNet. Max had told her the former owner had been arrested for trafficking in Jedi art, whatever Jedi art even was.

Eliana wasn’t familiar at all with Coruscanti architecture, but the palace had to be old. The halls were huge, with frescoed ceilings that must be over five meters high, and equally huge windows whose carved and gilded trims resembled columns.

“Winiver?”

“No, dear, I’m not planning on seducing you under cover of darkness, unless you ask for it.”

“I—no! I mean, that’s not what I… meant.” To add insult to the injury, her right foot chose that moment to trip on the edge of her skirt; Eliana managed not to drop flat on her face, but her feet thumped heavily on the floor. Thank the stars no heel was snapped off by the impact.

Lady Juno halted and whirled about. The movement was as elegant and measured as a dancing step. “Are you hurt? Unwell?”

“I’m fine…” She heard footsteps from the far end of the hall, fast and clattering.

The lights turned on and shone on the polished white cuirasses, and equally polished blaster guns, of two stormtroopers.

For no good and sensible reason, Eliana’s stomach churned. _Stupid. You’re an officer’s wife. You shouldn’t fear them_.

Lady Juno appeared more annoyed than afraid, as the two troopers skidded to a halt.

“There has been a commotion,” said the tallest and bulkiest of the two stormtroopers. Maybe it was the helmet vocoder, but her voice sounded… young. “What happened, ma’am?”

Lady Juno arched an eyebrow to the maximum contempt effect. Eliana wondered if she’d had it shaved and trimmed like that for this very purpose.

“Do you even know what the word ‘commotion’ means, soldier?” the lady asked, frostier than blizzard on Mygeeto.

The helmeted head tilted. Eliana could almost see the blinking eyes behind the lenses.

The shorter stormtrooper peered at her, then at Lady Juno. “Colt, maybe it’s better we let this be,” she told her companion. “Have _you_ seen the facial scans?”

“HL-1011, refer to me by my operative number only!” That was perfect stormie voice, but the soldier proceeded to ruin the effect herself, “We can’t look like amateurs in front of civilians, for Shiraya’s sake! Stop breaking the blasted protocol.”

Lady Juno raised a hand. “Troopers, _please_.”

HL-1011 straightened up on attention. Colt glanced back and forth at her sister-in-arms and at Lady Juno, finally settling on the latter.

“Mrs Veers and I are not here to interfere with your… tasks.”

“ _Veers_?” Colt cried out.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” muttered HL-1011. “Just check the scans!”

Colt fell silent for a few moments, staring up at Eliana, likely checking whatever data the helmet sensors were projecting. “Oh, Mother Goddess.” She snapped to attention. Eliana flinched at the clattering of the armour.

“I apologise, ma’am Captain.”

HL-1011 interjected, “That’s not the form of address.”

“Shut up.”

“You haven’t made it to Sergeant yet, don’t try giving me orders…”

Lady Juno patted Eliana’s shoulder. “The physical phenomenon you can observe here, my dear,” she said in an amused whisper, “is the light reflection of celebrity. If your husband keeps playing war hero so spectacularly, it shall get even better.”

As reassuring as that was _probably_ meant to be, Eliana’s mouth went dry. She could’ve helped a glass of wine, even a bad vintage. And Max at her side. Or just… just knowing where he was.

Well, the knight in shining fleximetal wasn’t here now. His absence would be a common occurrence for another couple years, he’d warned her; a bit more time to stomp out the last Separatists, subdue a few rebellions in the Outer Rim. As she’d told him every time he’d apologised for leaving, she was strong and could take it. She could get used to it.

_So, light reflection of celebrity, eh?_

Eliana cleared her throat, and the two bickering stormtroopers turned towards her.

“Lady Juno and I”, she said slowly, letting the Moff’s name sink in, “were taking a stroll and enjoying the artworks. I trust it’s not forbidden, is it?”

HL-1011 glanced at Colt, who glanced back at the helmet of the other trooper.

Small wonder most young children (including Zev) assumed bucketheads to be droids at first, thought Eliana. _To be fair, it’s an insult to droids_. May Max never know she had thought this.

“No, ma’am,” Colt said. She glanced at her companion again, and when HL-1011 added nothing she muttered, “C’mon, I can’t do the job for us both all the time!”

“Can we just leave the ladies alone though?”

“Yes, dear,” purred Lady Juno, “that would be a clever course of action. Should you behave like the good girls I’m _certain_ you are, I promise my husband will not hear a word of our little exchange—and neither will my friend’s husband, I gather?”

Lady Juno’ sideways glance made Eliana feel like a resting nexu had cracked a staring eye open towards her. “Neither Captain Veers.” She had wanted to sound reassuring (Max always spoke so fondly of his lads and lasses in white!), but even she could tell Lady Juno’s amicably threatening ways had rubbed onto her.

The stormtroopers said, “Yes, ma’am!” in unison. “Thank you,” HL-1011 added quietly. Eliana wondered how her voice might sound without the helmet vocoder’s mechanical hoarseness in the way. Then, at last, they turned on their heels and strode off.

Lady Juno’s icy smile twisted into a sneer. “This is an utter scandal. Elite troops of the Empire, oh please!”

“Max always said,” Eliana muttered, as if she was ashamed to contradict the other woman, “that a sentry’s job is not to be nice.” He was a cadet back then, before he was accepted into the infantry school on Carida; the wars hadn’t even started yet.

“Oh, darling, don’t excuse evil to make your husband happy!”

Eliana dropped her voice even lower, “I wouldn’t call it evil. They… they’re soldiers, after all.”

Lady Juno barked a laugh. “Dreadfully bad soldiers. Clone troopers would have never allowed themselves such unprofessionalism.” She gazed into the void beyond the transparisteel window, her expression mellowing. “Neither on active service, nor after hours. You have never heard of the 79’s, have you? But you heard of ARC troopers. Your husband must have. Big boys, bad sense of humour, funny jargon, no sense of privacy. They lived up to their mighty reputation in more than one sense.”

The only personal experience Eliana had ever had with the clones had been through Max’s frontline stories. Well, the parts he felt comfortable telling during home leaves. He said they were a bit unsettling at first, when you couldn’t tell one from another by the sound of their voice; but you got used to it. _Like killing, I guess_ , she’d retorted once, because they had been arguing and she wanted to hurt him. And hurt he’d been. _Quite, yes_.

“You seem upset.” Lady Juno pried her chin up. The hold was gentle, and she retreated her fingers straightaway. Eliana silently thanked the Force she wouldn’t have to rebuff the umpteenth improper overture of this night. “Do not be. My husband knew very well; I had his blessing and he mine. You and your handsome captain might want to reach such an agreement too, should he be gone for long.”

“The war is going to be over by Life Day,” Eliana spat out, instinctively raising her fists in a most unladylike manner—but hell if she cared. The HoloNet news reported victories every day. Rebel leaders were executed, their brigand bands dispersed. Max had told her he’d heard from his superiors— _actual superiors, Eli, not the usual barrack-room scuttlebutt_ —chances were high he might be home for good by Life Day. How dared someone here, on Imperial Centre of all places, doubt that? How dared this perfect stranger make her doubt Max?

Lady Juno regarded her with an inscrutable stare. Not surprise, no anger or offence. In the end, she put the smile back on. “It indeed will be for those two stormtroopers, at least. My husband must be informed and disciplinary actions undertaken.”

What was this, a game of who displayed more patriotic zeal? Defeat hit Eliana with a gut-punch. Her dress felt so tight-fitting it choked her, and the few unbraided hairs on the back of her neck stood. She didn’t venture another word, out of fear it might get those two hapless soldiers into further trouble. Maybe Lady Juno just wanted to intimidate her. Show the naive little upstart her place. She hoped so. It had worked.

Lady Juno started towards a painting on the wall. It was unnerving not to know how she’d taken Eliana’s silence, if it had elicited any reaction at all. Eliana followed suit, glaring at the painting and feeling a childish urge to press a writing stylus hard on it and draw it up and down, until the canvas hung in tatters.

The painting was a life-size standing portrait of a lady in a poofy pink dress and bejewelled fingers, holding a chalice as if to offer a toast to the viewer. Her skin and eyes were glazed, like those of a party-goer who’d smoked glitterstim, and the neck disproportionately long for a Human. Lady Juno stood in front of the portrait, leaning over to stare into the dark purple content of the glass.

An LED flashed on the green gem at the woman’s forefinger ring. Then the painting shuffled smoothly to the side, revealing a vault built into the wall. Lady Juno’s dainty fingers typed a code on the touch-screen of the hatch, and the vault opened.

“Is that…?”

Lady Juno pulled out the bottle and held it up like a trophy. “Naboo vintage, real Shiraya’s Blood. From Senator Amidala’s personal stock.”

“How did it get here?”

The stopper came off with a light pop. Lady Juno sniffed the mouth of the bottle, closed her eyes and sighed in ecstasy. “The former owner of this place had flawed ways in certain regards, but she knew how to please her guests.”

Eliana wondered how exactly that answered her questions. Better not to demand explanations, though. Wife of a Moff or not, Lady Juno had already praised the Republic times more than it was respectable to. It occurred to Eliana she should have left after what had happened with those stormtroopers. Before and during the wars, everyone on Denon knew that walls on Coruscant had eyes and ears, with all the Senate intrigue going on; things should— _must_ —have changed for the better under the Empire. And yet, who knew. Eliana wanted nothing to do with intrigue; she wanted to go home with her husband.

“But we don’t have any glasses,” she said.

Lady Juno levelled her eyes on her. Seeing through the affected primness, straight to the core of fear below. Then she raised the bottle to her lips, and knocked back a long chug. Just when Eliana started seriously wondering if she could drink up the entire bottle and Human physiology be damned, she passed it to her, with the same hard look on her face.

Eliana shifted her aching feet to stand straighter. “Thank you,” she said in a casual tone as she took the proffered bottle. The label was yellow with age, decorated with the Naboo royal crest and unreadable writings in a curly font.

The wine was honey-sweet on her tongue, hot like brandy going down her throat, and hitting like a blaster shot when it plopped into her stomach. Eliana broke off the guzzling at the last very moment before her body mutinied and coughed the wine back out.

“Do you know how this got its name?” Lady Juno turned the bottle towards the nearest light source. “According to mythology, all gods had lava running in their veins instead of blood; I think there is a legend in which some unfortunate monster—or violent husband, I can’t recall now—tried to harm the goddess Shiraya, but all she had to do to defend herself was lift her skirt and drop her panties. The blood burned her aggressor to death .” She rolled the bottle so that the leftover wine inside sloshed almost musically. “I think it was a husband. As if there is a difference!”

“Well, _I_ wouldn’t want my husband to burn to death.” It came out a lot more snappish than Eliana had meant to be, but the wine prevented her from giving a damn. It did feel like having fire in her bloodstream, radiating from the hot pit deep in her chest.

“And you wouldn’t want anyone to steal your husband from you, would you?”

The heat turned into a chillingly cold wave, crawling up and clawing onto her too-exposed skin. “I think I need more wine before I give an answer.”

Lady Juno laughed, passing her the bottle. Once Eliana had downed another—smaller—mouthful of liquid fire, she said, “How does he like to make love?”

“…Excuse me?”

“I’d wager he has a penchant for rough ploughing. But you can never be sure. Let’s start from the basics—do you two like the same positions?”

Eliana flushed, and the wine made it worse. “I don’t think I… need this kind of advice, Winiver.”

“Oh, I know, I know, you two have made a child already.”

Zev had cried when he’d seen her and Max dressed up and ready to depart. She was sure he’d thought mom was going off to war with dad, leaving him alone. They could hear his crying, and Max’s mother trying to appease him with a lullaby, all the way to the speeder’s landing pad.

“But,” Lady Juno went on, “you will agree that there are needs, and urges, in the life of a married couple, beyond the merely reproductive ones. Correct?”

Eliana was silent and still for a few seconds. Then she nodded. “My husband and I are quite good at taking care of them, I assure you. But I do appreciate your consideration.”

“So you do like the same positions. Good.” Lady Juno pried the bottle from Eliana’s hand. Eliana couldn’t help a complacent smile as the other woman, too, had to take a much smaller sip than the first.

Lady Juno’s voice emerged lower and throatier, the kind that wouldn’t be out of place in a bedroom, “Does he talk dirty to you?”

“Max? Oh, no way!”

Lady Juno cocked one of her finely designed eyebrows.

“I know he’s a big man and doesn’t give off this impression but… well, he’s very affectionate. He… talks sweet, not dirty.”

“Do you like it?”

“Of course!” Yet, she gazed down. To the front of her skirt, the purple stains that had materialised on the yellow fabric, then to the bottle. “Well, he… does ask me to… to give him orders sometimes.” She waved a hand, still avoiding to look Lady Juno in the eyes. “Nothing hardcore. I’ll tell him to kiss in certain places, when to start and when to stop.”

She couldn’t go on. Lady Juno waited for several seconds, and the silence hung as heavy as airspeeder fumes on a smoggy day. “Darling, that’s an excellent starting point.”

Whatever answer Eliana had been awaiting with her breath held, it wasn’t this.

“You really should invest in talking dirty to him. Like one of his soldiers would do.”

“I don’t think what he wants during a home leave is make love to one of his soldiers.”

“But he likes taking orders just fine, hmm?”

Eliana flinched, but didn’t protest. The flinch itself wasn’t unpleasant; the voice of her husband, the grey of his uniform standing out on the white bedsheets, the hot smell of his breath, whirled about in the back of her mind.

“Trust me, it’s going to be different when his beautiful wife is the one giving them.”

“I guess.” Eliana cleared her throat and met the other woman’s eyes again. Enough of appearing weak. “I have a question, though.”

“And I might have an answer.” Lady Juno held the bottle higher. “Are you going to need a little fix of courage to ask it?”

“No, thank you.” Kriffing hell. She must be blushing really bad. “He says he likes how I give him handjobs, but I _do_ notice when he’s lying to me. Any tips on that?”

“One word, darling: lube.”

“…Oh.”

Lady Juno giggled. Shrill like a little girl, with her free hand over her mouth.

“Well, thanks all the same.” Eliana snatched the bottle and took another sip.

“I was laughing because I made that sin of inexperience with Moff Juno, many years ago.” Her smile dimmed. “His reaction wasn’t quite as considerate as your husband’s.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

“He was appallingly clueless as to how to treat my breasts, so the score was even.”

So much for all the times, after a schoolyard scuffle, that Eliana’s mother had told her two wrongs don’t make one right.

Lady Juno held up a well-manicured, red-polished finger. “You may want to remember this trick for the Bendu monk position.”

One of her and Max’s favourites. She felt too self-conscious to admit it, but the flush on her cheeks got hotter and a light pinching sensation caught her under her pants.

“Never just lie there with your legs spread. Lock them around his waist and rest your feet on those nice afterburners of his.” Lady Juno glanced down at Eliana’s feet, and nodded. “Yes, shoes like that are a good option. Just don’t stab too hard, unless he likes it. And make sure you’re always looking him in the eyes. Slap him or pull his hair if he turns away.”

The mental image made Eliana break a sweat.

She didn’t hear the footsteps. Just noticed, when it was already too late, Lady Juno was looking—smiling—somewhere else, at someone else.

The man was wearing a Navy dress uniform, looked not much younger than Max, and in her present inebriated state she found him very cute. For some reason, he was carrying a bottle under an arm. He slowed to a stop in front of the two women, levelling the blank stare of officers on Lady Juno. “Winiver,” he said. “It appears you have beaten me to the good stuff, once again.”

“Do you mean this,” she tilted the empty bottle, “or my charming new friend, Mrs Veers?”

The Navy officer raised his eyebrows. “Captain Veers’ wife, I suppose?”

“And my name is Eliana,” she replied, not bothering to filter out the irritation. Damn, she was getting huffier and huffier. But it was tiring to be referred to, all the time, as nothing more than the war hero’s wife. As if she were just another medal pinned to Max’s uniform.

“I chanced upon your husband, not long ago. He’s waiting for you.”

Her heart thumped like the paw of an AT-AT. “Max? Where?”

“One of the panoramic balconies on the western corridor. I’d love to escort you there, but I am on a mission of my own.” He shot a glare at Lady Juno. 

“Oh, Lorth, you have grown so thorny since you started taking the Navy seriously.”

The officer said nothing, just took a deep puffing breath. His pretty red lips quivered. Eliana suddenly felt like she wanted to kiss something. Even this perfect stranger, or Moff Juno or both, would do.

“Winiver, if you don’t mind…” she said.

“Sure, sure, don’t make that poor man impatient.” Lady Juno stepped in front of the officer, quite deep into his personal space. “Unless a certain someone has already made him impatient, and taken advantage of the situation.”

The officer raised his voice—within the boundaries of politeness, but raise it he did, “I am not that kind of man. I thought we’d ascertained that a while ago, Winiver.”

“You aren’t ever going to forgive me, aren’t you?”

Silence.

Lady Juno shrugged her shoulders. “If you’re after the good wine, chuck that ungodly swill you have there down the nearest garbage chute and try what’s inside the Sullustan obsidian totems in the next hall. It’s much blander than Shiraya’s Blood, but it should win back the heart of your priggish boyfriend all the same.” The officer winced slightly, and she went on, “He strikes me as a lightweight, anyway.”

Eliana tiptoed away from them, and back up the hall. It wasn’t easy with those blasted painful shoes, and the booze was sending her sense of balance into a vortex motion.

When she was sure they couldn’t see her, she slipped off her shoes and broke into a run.


	3. Chapter 3

Veers had to admit it: the sight of the Coruscanti traffic was hypnotic. Like staring into hyperspace from a viewport, or into the flames of a campfire.

He’d spent a lot of time in engine rooms and repair bays, getting his hands dirty with the tech crews, and yet he couldn’t have named a single airspeeder model of the ones he saw in the traffic lanes. Except for the police speeders. There were a lot more of those than last time he’d been on Coruscant.

He witnessed three accidents. Collisions, all three of them. These bastards must be flying blindfolded, he thought. The damaged speeders plunged downwards, engines emitting smoke and fire. From where he stood, despite having the good eyesight of someone used to take aim with a blaster, it was too far to see the pilots.

Fucking Coruscant. The next airspeeder in the traffic lane would glide into the gap left by the crashed one, while another tried to sneak into that same gap from the lane at the side. Shit, Captain Veers missed war. Having the firepower and the rank to do something, rather than standing there like an idiot and watching.

His forehead touched the transparisteel (the cap had been long since removed, leaving a fiery dent in his skin all around his head). His breath smelled of wine, and his eyelids were heavy; it was the alcohol’s fault, in part, but he also had a space lag yet to sleep through. His transport had dropped him home on Denon during the ship’s night cycle, but planetside it was daytime. Sleeping when Zev was awake and available for play was out of the question.

The corner of his eye caught a flicker on the transparisteel. Some long-ingrained distance calculation reflex yelled at him it wasn’t coming from the outside, but from behind him. He whirled about, holding up his clenched fists into a boxing guard.

His wife froze in her tracks, a pace away from him.

Veers slumped with his back against the pane. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, please.” The words tied and pulled tight a knot in his throat as he uttered them. Why couldn’t he just be happy she’d found him? He noticed she was holding her shoes in a hand and was going barefoot; that was why he hadn’t heard her steps.

Eliana frowned and pursed her lips. There were stains on them, a dark purplish colour that stood out on the faint pink of the lipstick. “Scare you? Sithspit, Captain, what are you blathering about?”

“I—”

“Aren’t you the valiant hero they speak so highly of?” The pointy heel of one of her shoes stabbed his chest, where his service medal hung. How did she manage to walk with shoes like that? “Is this shiny rubbish for show?”

“Who… who are you and what did you do to my wife?”

She stepped close to him. The skirt of her dress swathed his knees, and if he gazed down to avoid her fiery eyes— _shit, she’s angry I left her alone, shit shit shit, nice husband work here, Maximilian_ —he could see inside the neckline. Her tits were squished together in the bodice of her dress…

He hauled his head back up, taking advantage of the height gap to stare into thin air just above the small gemstone flowers in Eliana’s hair.

A thud made him recoil completely flat to the transparisteel wall behind him. Eliana had dropped her shoes to the floor. Then a louder thud, more metallic; a moment later he realised she’d removed his belt.

“Eli, I know I’ve made you angry.” He was surprised to hear the fright in his voice, and to taste it, viscous and sour like ashes stuck in his throat. “I’m sorry.” The sorry feeling extended to the inappropriate reaction of his lower artillery deck, that added a new layer of uncomfortableness to his starchy uniform trousers. 

She seized his collar, somehow managing to dodge the aiguillette fastened to the first button, and pulled him down to her eye level. The tips of their noses brushed, and every word she spoke blew wine-flavoured air on his lips. “Apologies aren’t an option, Captain Veers.”

He pressed his mouth to hers and plunged his tongue in. Eliana gave a groan, still full of anger, but her hand behind the back of his neck, her nails scratching his scalp, kept Veers from breaking the kiss in a disgraceful retreat.

She relaxed into his arms, and he gently pushed her to the wall, latching his forearms under the folds of her dress and the warm weight of her buttocks. She was lighter than he remembered. Last time he’d lifted her in his arms, she was pregnant.

Eliana groaned louder and twisted her head out of the kiss. Her face was beaded with sweat. “Put me down.”

He obeyed, and found he was trembling. She wriggled out of his now limp hold and stepped back into her shoes. Getting ready to leave, no doubt. Veers leaned against the wall, dizzy in one head, aching in another, feeling as uncomfortable, helpless and near panic as if he’d been hit on the battlefield. “Eli,” he said in a small voice, “I know you said you don’t want apologies, but please—”

“Damn right, Captain. No apologies.”

He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt, choking back a scream or tears or a flood of swearing.

Eliana slid again in front of him, her back to the pane and to Coruscant. “Just fuck me.” It was an order and a plea at the same time.

The planet spun around him like a TIE fighter out of control. He ground himself against his wife, for support as much as for the purpose of soaking up every centimetre of her body. Her right leg snaked up to his hip, the trussed-up skirt leaving it bare to the thigh.

Veers took the hint and lifted her again, while she held fast onto his shoulders. There was so much damned fabric cluttering the space between his boner and her crotch, but his fingertips could reach and stroke her hot slit through the light cotton—moist already.

The response was a moan into his ear, then a shower of kisses to his cheek and neck. He manoeuvred the band of cloth out of the way and slipped the tip of his middle finger inside the folds of flesh. Eliana hissed and curled up against him; her legs crossed behind the small of his back, pulling him closer and making it more difficult to breath.

Next came a gentle, gradually deepening stab to his arse. The heels of her shoes. It was his turn to groan.

“Do you like that?” Her voice had dropped so low he almost didn’t hear it over his own panting.

His body thought about it for a few quivering seconds. “Harder, please.”

She gave him a sharp spurring, that made him buck his hips and grind his still-clothed erection onto her undefended trench.

After a few such thrusts, he sucked in extra breath and drawled, “Do you like it?”

“Oh, Maxie—”

Footsteps. Down the corridor. Getting louder.

Veers froze.

And laughter, too, loud and masculine.

Eliana flinched in his arms. They stared at each other for a moment, mirroring glazed eyes and red cheeks. She quickly disentangled her legs; he put her down on her feet, then lunged for his belt… shit, his cap had rolled off. He made a dive for it, and he’d barely scooped the hat off the floor when a man in Navy dress uniform and another in ISB white shambled in.

Veers sprang up to attention, the belt hidden behind his back and the cap covering his hopefully not too mussed hair.

Moff Juno. _Oh, poodoo_. His uniform, short of cap, gloves, and a few decorations, was unfastened at the shoulder, exposing a black undershirt that, for reasons Veers prayed he wasn’t going to learn, was wet. The ISB officer, a grey-haired, grey-moustached man who must be Colonel Yularen, was trying his best to drag Juno away. The Moff stood there blinking at Veers, not budging of a millimetre.

Then Juno boomed with laughter. Veers could smell alcohol, smoke and vomit from five meters away. Damn, Yularen must have a stomach of durasteel ( _well, he’s ISB after all_ ) to stand so close to him and keep up a sabacc face.

“I told you, Wilhuff,” Juno patted Yularen’s shoulder and pointed a finger at Veers, “that good-boy-next-door travesty was all for show! Just… just look at what Captain Veers here’s all about when nobody’s looking!”

Veers felt like a kilometres-long vertical drop down this skyscraper was suddenly a pleasant idea.

“And I told you,” the ISB colonel said sternly, “my forename is Wulff. I am not Grand Moff Tarkin.”

“Just _look_ , when nobody’s _looking_ … Huh, you didn’t get the pun, did you?”

Juno’s blood-shot gaze and waving index finger slid to Eliana. Veers could barely resist the impulse to step between his wife and the drunk Moff, shielding her.

“You’re a lucky woman, missy. Hope y’know how to make your husband here feel like he’s a lucky man!”

Veers clenched his fists tight onto the belt. If only the ISB man hadn’t been here, he could’ve used it to choke some of that disorderly intoxication out of Moff Juno.

“With all due respect,” retorted Eliana in a calm voice, just a tad too cold to be amiable, “Maximilian and I are lucky to be husband and wife. That is everything you need to know, good sir.”

Juno blinked. Yularen raised an eyebrow.

Undying love for his wife notwithstanding, Veers couldn’t block a spike of anger and accusation at her, too; showing such disrespect to the higher-ups could blast his career to fine particles. All his work so far, all the marching and fighting, wounds and medals, the dead soldiers and wrecked vehicles, would have been for nothing.

In the end, Juno smiled and nodded as if it had taken him that many precious seconds to piece together the meaning of the phrase. It wasn’t unlikely. “So, Captain, you like ‘em small and fierce. I’ve had enough of the type since they trapped me in marriage with my Winnie, but if that’s your cup of tea…” The Moff sighed and shrugged. The shrug made him lean more heavily on Yularen, and the colonel teetered for an instant under the shifted weight.

“Let’s go, Wilhuff. The young’uns would rather enjoy each other’s company…” Juno’s voice dropped lower and lower, until it was a muttered garble, and likewise his head dropped on his chest.

Yularen yanked him awake enough to follow him down the corridor. He didn’t even acknowledge Veers’ parting salute. It was for the better. A tacit invitation to forget the entire incident—so the ISB would forget catching Captain Veers and his wife mingling limbs at an inappropriate time and place.

Veers waited until Juno’s slurred babbling wasn’t audible anymore, then turned to Eliana, meeting a contrite look that made him feel bad for putting his worry over his career before her. “I’m sorry,” he said. For so many things. For tonight, for the months they’d spent far away from each other and Zev, and those they were going to spend yet.

She smoothed the front of her skirt. Whatever damage he had done to her underwear, Moff Juno and Yularen mustn’t have seen it. Thank the Force for small favours. “You should stop apologising so much, Maxie. _I_ got you into this mess, after all.”

He looked down to the tinted transparisteel floor, on which his feet seemed to stand precariously over the unkind void. Just waiting to swallow him up. “It’s still my fault for dragging you here and allowing it to happen.”

He listened to the quiet tapping of her shoes as she padded over to him, pried the belt from his hands, and clasped it back around his waist. “How about you tell everyone I’m indisposed, or whatever these fancy people call a cripplingly bad PMS,” she rolled her eyes, “and we go home? You could tell your mother to take Zev home with her, and we could finish what we were just starting.”

“I’d love it. But the transport doesn’t leave until—”

“It doesn’t need to be a military transport, I told you! If we leave now, we might get to the spaceport in time to catch the 1.30 ferry to Denon.” Eliana folded her arms and gave him the ‘no buts’ frown.

After a pause, Veers said, “I’m not feeling well, you know. It must be the wine.” He curled up a corner of his mouth as Eliana nodded affecting gravity. “And that stun shot that knocked me out cold on Asyrphus. The medic did say it could cause aches and migraines for weeks on.”

“Indeed. It’s really better that we go then, dear.” Eliana took his arm and leaned onto him.

At the main external gates of the palace, one of the stormtroopers on patrol who stopped to salute whispered, “Sorry again, ma’am Captain,” he had no clue why. Eliana nodded at the woman, and offered no explanation, which he didn’t ask.

“Maxie.”

“Yes?” He raised an arm to halt an approaching cab.

“Was it true about Asyrphus? That you were stunned so badly?”

He smiled at her and lied, “Just dramatic embellishment, of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt: "stop talking about your wife".
> 
> The title comes from a line in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play [_The School for Scandal_](http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/heres-maiden-bashful-fifteen) (1777).


End file.
